


grip of a hurricane (blow myself away)

by TheTartWitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cnars must sleep, Creature Harry, Dark moments are coming, Harry is a kelpie now, Harry's like four, Instances of Abuse, Kelpie Harry, Kelpies, Magical Trade, Petunia hits Harry with frying pans, The Black Lake is Harry's new home, a kelpie bites Harry's throat off, he doesn't know what's happening, interspersed with creepy fluff?, it's canon, the use of logic to excuse kidnapping, time-travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-10-29 14:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10856022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: “Come here, little human,” it says, but it doesn’t seem angry at him, so he goes closer. “I will tell you a secret, human child, and you must always keep it,” it says.“Okay,” he says curiously, because no one ever tells him secrets and he’d be so good at keeping them, he knows he would be.“The secret goes like this,” says the creature, and before he can react a mouthful of needle-thin fangs is punching through the flesh of his neck.-Title from Hurricane Drunk, by Florence + the Machine





	1. The Secret

**Author's Note:**

> It's a kelpie. It looks human in this chapter, but it usually looks like a skeletal black horse that is always wet, and has only its front hooves in the water. The human form furthered plot.

He’s just a child when he meets the creature in the pond by the park. It’s dying; something in the water poisoning it with every enchanted breath. Its gills flutter in the afternoon air and oxygen rasps down its exposed throat.

He sidles closer, curious. Uncle Vernon insists magic doesn’t exist, that faerie tales are lies told to scare children, but he’s always thought there was a strange sort of truth in the words: the witch is hungry, and food wanders into her grasp, so she goes to eat. It isn’t her fault dinner didn’t want to be eaten just yet, but she still gets burned. The wolf hunts pigs to eat, but their shelters prevent him from eating also and he burns for trespassing. Fire seems to be a common deterrent in faerie tales; supposed ‘evil’ gets burned often, be it metaphorical or literal.

“Oh,” says the creature. It’s webbed in the ears and fingers and toes, and its skin is a pale shade of Harry’s eyes, just deep enough to blend into the silt beneath the surface. It blinks up at him with doe eyes, the pupils hugely expanded. “Hello, human child.”

He smiles at it. “Hello,” he says in return, and raises a hand to wipe the blood from the cut in his lip he’d gotten a few minutes earlier, when Aunt Petunia had hit him with a frying pan. She’d looked stricken afterwards, but he’d been running too fast to hear anything she had to say.

The thing’s eyes go flinty and sharp and its nails extend to the length of its forearm. “Come here, little human,” it says, but it doesn’t seem angry at _him_ , so he goes closer. “I will tell you a secret, human child, and you must always keep it,” it says.

“Okay,” he says curiously, because no one ever tells him secrets and he’d be so good at keeping them, he knows he would be.

“The secret goes like this,” says the creature, and before he can react a mouthful of needle-thin fangs is punching through the flesh of his neck.


	2. The Logical Leftovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You tasted very good,” it says, and Harry wants to frown but something about the expression doesn’t work on his new face. “You’re a magic child, so I let you borrow some of mine - I like you, so it wasn’t hard - and in return, you gave me a meal and healed my sickness. Also, horses don’t frown.”

He wakes up in the park’s pond with four legs. The creature is still lying on the ground, but it’s begun to stand. Its gills don’t flutter anymore; its breath doesn’t rasp, really. There’s something next to it on the shore, something small and pale with shocked, dull green eyes. There’s a mess of blood on the grass beside it, smeared all over the blades. The creature sees him looking. 

“You tasted very good,” it says, and Harry wants to frown but something about the expression doesn’t work on his new face. “You’re a magic child, so I let you borrow some of mine - I like you, so it wasn’t hard - and in return, you gave me a meal and healed my sickness. Also, horses don’t frown.” 

Harry isn’t a horse, though, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Except, when he looks down and sees lanky foal legs and a horse’s long face in the pond’s clear-ish water, it becomes evident to him that he has become a horse. A really wet one, if the constant dripping is any indication, but the pond’s water burns in his eyes and against the feathery skin of his legs, and his breath rattles in his chest.

He nickers in distress, and the creature grins. “Yes, the water here isn’t very good, but with my failing health I couldn’t get anywhere else. Now that I’ve gotten better, I’ll take you somewhere good. How about it?” 

Harry wants to go, but… he glances down the street. What about Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Dudley? What about the watering, and making breakfast, and dusting the house? What about getting the mail?

“I know they hit you,” says the creature, and its teeth flash again. “Humans like that don’t deserve children. Children are a good thing, tasty too. But if you can’t care for your own young, they should be given to someone who can, and since I can care for you and they can’t, it’s only right that you come with me.”

It does sound very logical. Aunt Petunia is always telling him how much trouble he is, and Uncle Vernon said just last week how much keeping him costs.

“Let’s go,” says the creature, and when Harry blinks it’s a horse too, a pale greyish green one that rises out of the grass like a piece of living water. There’s a lilypad clinging to its mane and water-weeds tangled in its tail. It tosses its head and silently trots to the road. Harry follows, stepping over his empty body without much of a second thought. It’s not him anymore. The Harry lying there was Aunt Petunia’s, and now he belongs with this creature, so it’s only right that there’s some tangible evidence of the change.


	3. The Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5\. Every kelpie must eat, and sometimes the only appetizing thing around is a human. (“After a while you’ll figure out your preference: young, old, good, bad, heart, mind.” Cnars says, and eats a frog that leaps too slowly.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In mythology, kelpies were man-eaters. This will not change in my fic. Harry is going to eat some people.

They walk a very long way but somehow, it doesn’t feel like that long a walk at all. Harry’s learned so much on this walk, it feels like his brain is leaking with the water draining off of him. 

  1. Harry is a kelpie. The creature that bit him and used his magic to change his shape is also a kelpie by the name of Cnars. 
  2. This is how all kelpies are made, with “worthy victims”, as Cnars says.
  3. Harry will never have to return to the Dursleys. Ever.
  4. Eventually, Harry will need to pick a new name. ‘Harry’ is a human boy name and he is now a kelpie. Cnars is adamant on this fact. (“Harry is dead,” he says. “Now, there is only you and what you choose to become.”)
  5. Every kelpie must eat, and sometimes the only appetizing thing around is a human. (“After a while you’ll figure out your preference: young, old, good, bad, heart, mind.” Cnars says, and eats a frog that leaps too slowly.)
  6. Kelpies have only ever let one human male close without killing or changing him: Newton Artemis Fido Scamander. He’s long dead now, apparently, but his children’s children may be around. They’ve been marked so that every kelpie will know them and the debt they are owed.
  7. Harry is magic. 



 

Eventually they reach a lake. It’s huge, bigger than anything Harry’s ever seen, and something about the tossing, hungry water calls to a part of him that sleeps for now, something wild and crazed and hollow. Cnars walks right up to edge of it and nods his long head. 

“Magical water,” he says, “Good for rejuvenation of magic and the sleepless.”

Harry follows as he steps right into the water as though it isn’t there. Harry can feel how the water brushes his legs, but there isn’t the same loss of movement as when he went to the pool once with his class. It’s as though he’s walking on dry land. 

Once they finally walk far enough for the water to swell over their heads, Harry’s hind legs seem to tuck up into his body. His tail fills out with flesh until he has a very long, shining fish’s tail. He’s still a deep black, and Cnars is still a speckled greyish-green, but they don’t look much like horses anymore. Cnars’ eyes glow a solid, emerald green in the dark water, and his flesh seems to suction to his bones, giving him a skeletal look. Water-weeds tangle themselves in his mane.

He looks like a sea monster.

Harry knows he looks like that too, and it’s one of the proudest moments in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any suggestions for Harry's kelpie name?


	4. Petunia: The Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an interlude for Petunia's POV and the discovery of Harry's body.

(Petunia runs after her nephew, worried he’ll be seen, but she doesn’t get far. 

She only gets to the pond by the park before her knees give out. The grass is a mess of blood and Lily’s eyes, dull and empty, staring up at the evening sky. For a moment she can’t breathe, can’t see anything but the edges of the boy’s throat ripped open, can’t-

She didn’t mean to  _ kill  _ him. 

It’s obvious something got to him, some sort of dog or something, and that she should get up and find someone with a phone to call the police. It takes a moment, but soon she’s staggering to her feet and slowly making her way across the park to the yard of Ms. Number Seven. She must look like something undead, with the blood clotting on her skirt and the wild look in her eyes, but she doesn’t care. 

There’s nothing left of Lily. Why didn’t it occur to her when the boy was alive? Lily isn’t coming back for him. No matter how harsh Petunia is, how manic and angry and punishing, Lily isn’t coming back. And now the boy is dead, and there is nothing left for Petunia of that spark they both held like it was nothing.

When Ms. Number Seven answers the door she screams. Petunia doesn’t shush her, just points across the park and says quietly, tiredly, “I’ll need to use your phone to call the police. My nephew’s been murdered.”)

(That’s the last thing she says for years.)


	5. The Demonstration of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cnars begins teaching Muir magic. Something rustles in the underbrush?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the contest's results are being posted here: "Muir" won, sent in by Gravitys_Child! *sets off balloons*

Cnars begins teaching Muir how to use the lake’s magic: how to slip through the reefs and propel himself along the current with a single flick of his tail. Alongside the natural magicks, there’s the technical stuff, such as hypnotizing the lake’s fish, changing shape from horse to human (with webbed fingers, toes, and ears - Muir looked very funny when he’d glanced at himself in the water’s reflection) to his underwater-form with the bones and drippy horseflesh, and telling lies without saying a word. Cnars maintained that these were skills that would protect him from dangerous humans  _ and  _ catch him prey, so he didn’t complain, but the idea of eating someone felt like it should have grossed him out. Surprisingly, Muir didn’t feel that much at all.

Cnars even took him backwards in time, though it put him to sleep almost immediately afterwards, leaving Muir alone to explore the older lake. There was definitely more fish, but not by much, just enough to be noticeable. 

Children’s legs occasionally paddled through the water, accompanied by the minute flicks of a giant squid’s tentacles as it policed the thrashing children, so he was never tempted to try his skills. Some days, he basked on a remote part of the short, soaking in the sunlight and greeting the birds, who were so far away it was unlikely he’d ever get a bite of them anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to make friends.

One evening, there was rustling near the treeline as a squirrel burst from them. Muir studied the vegetation in that direction thoughtfully; Cnars was still sleeping in the deep parts of the lake, and Muir didn’t know all the magic he’d need to defend himself, but anything threatening would be derailed, even just for a moment, by his hypnotic gaze anyway, giving him time to reach the waters and disappear into them.

He waits, listening to a muffled voice cursing some child, until whatever it is comes around the nearest tree’s trunk.

It’s a human boy! Tall, handsome, scowling, but human. 

Muir was very, very still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the magic happened a little earlier than in my notes, but it shouldn't mess up my planned plot too much. Questions are welcome about anything in this, and yes, before you ask, if it isn't explicitly clear (I haven't looked at this for a few days and can't remember) they have gone back in time. To what time will soon become clear and I don't want to drop spoilers.  
> It may be a few days until the next chapter is posted. My weekend is going to fantastically busy with a job interview and then working for my grandfather, but maybe I'll find the time in my pocket or something.


End file.
